BFL Product Failures / Underperformance.

[Xian01]

I don't understand why everyone blames BFL.. From their site I can read lots of good stuff:
To name one they ar the only ASIC company ever delivered while others still writing ideas on napkins:

Since 2011, Butterfly Labs has been the pioneer and leader of the bitcoin mining hardware industry.  As we enter the 28nm era, we're the only competitor with a proven ASIC design in the field.  We have 45 employees and a matured production capacity & supply chain.   Our 28nm competitors have never delivered or even demonstrated an ASIC product of any kind.  Their manufacturing, supply chain and engineering are all back-of-the-napkin ideas.

False statement as demonstrated by KNC shipping their 28nm product, and now undergoing development of a 20nm product.

As for being the only ASIC company to deliver, my ASICminer, Bitfury, Avalon, and Bitmain products would disagree with you.

[complang]

So you are telling us that BFL is lying? 

[Bicknellski]

So why are discussing BFL's track record for telling the truth, as the there are many threads that cover all their inconsistencies right? Take it to another thread or start your own it is off topic.

How about we post the Product Failures / Under Performance issues as that is the topic.

[af_newbie]

I for one did not have too many issues with their minis.  Still running since August.  I took the boards out of the cases for better cooling.  
I wish they delivered just the boards not this fancy case.

One issue I had was with the bfgminer not recognizing all USB devices after power failure, but it works better with the latest version.

That is fortunate.

There are significant amounts of people, as documented in this thread, who have had less than satisfactory experiences with BFL products. Here is hoping that the lessons learned here help consumers make better choices in 2014.

I had bitfury boards, sold them in a hurry.  Big fire hazard. Not very well engineered board.
BFLs seems to be designed much better.  More stable.  Knock on wood.

Most people are just angry with BFL because of the "2 more weeks" type of delays that exended into months and in some cases into years.  But if you look at the products themselves, it is not all bad.  Pretty good actually.

[Syke]

I had bitfury boards, sold them in a hurry.  Big fire hazard. Not very well engineered board.
BFLs seems to be designed much better.  More stable.  Knock on wood.

You're joking, right?

Let's see what an inside expert has to say:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=92268.msg1454547#msg1454547

Our devices would literally melt if they came in at 114w or more.

It's pure luck they don't all melt down.

[jayeeyee]

So you are telling us that BFL is lying?  

I know you're just joking or being sarcastic but for those who didn't understand the inside joke you made, let me explain it those people.  BFL didn't "lie" about their deliverydate.  They just lead all their customers to believe that their products were going to be delivered on time. So no, BFL didn't lie to their customers, they knew they weren't going to be able to keep their claims.. so they just "extended" the truth. (Wow.. even I can't help being sarcastic either)

And.. as for the BFL claim they're the only manufactures who have working ASIC devices.. that's a straight up plain'o-lie... or maybe that's just an advertisement of some sort.  Kinda like those advertisements for penis-enlarger pills that claims it work but really doesn't.

If you want an excellent example of how an ASIC manufacture should operate, take a look at KNC's 28nm devices.  They announced their ASIC devices around April, 2013.  Got everything readied and delivered by late Oct/early Nov on the SAME year.  BFL will never be able to top that.

[bcp19]

I had bitfury boards, sold them in a hurry.  Big fire hazard. Not very well engineered board.
BFLs seems to be designed much better.  More stable.  Knock on wood.

You're joking, right?

Let's see what an inside expert has to say:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=92268.msg1454547#msg1454547

Our devices would literally melt if they came in at 114w or more.

It's pure luck they don't all melt down.

I notice you have to go back to before they re-engineered their boards to find something that is no longer applicable and make it sound like an on-going hazard.  But then, you're the FUD apprentice working under Bick "FUD Master", so you don't need truth.

[bcp19]

But if you look at the products themselves, it is not all bad.  Pretty good actually.

The number of issues with regards to BFL products as posted only in this thread respectfully begs to differ from your personal experience but I would like to hear an assessment that logically explains how the failures and under performance stated is not an indicator of significant quality issues with BFL products.

You ever take probability and statistics Bickski?  If you had, then you'd know that your 'number of issues' is statistically insignificant compared to the number of units produced.  You want "logic", but you refuse to use it yourself.  Look at any of the big chip companies... Intel and AMD both sell CPUs that have part of the chip disabled since they cannot maintain a 100% working chip on 100% of chips produced.  That's why they have grades of chips... but hey, you should already know this, right? 

[Bicknellski]

But if you look at the products themselves, it is not all bad.  Pretty good actually.

The number of issues with regards to BFL products as posted only in this thread respectfully begs to differ from your personal experience but I would like to hear an assessment that logically explains how the failures and under performance stated is not an indicator of significant quality issues with BFL products.

[jzcjca00]

But if you look at the products themselves, it is not all bad.  Pretty good actually.

The number of issues with regards to BFL products as posted only in this thread respectfully begs to differ from your personal experience but I would like to hear an assessment that logically explains how the failures and under performance stated is not an indicator of significant quality issues with BFL products.

You ever take probability and statistics Bickski?  If you had, then you'd know that your 'number of issues' is statistically insignificant compared to the number of units produced.  You want "logic", but you refuse to use it yourself.  Look at any of the big chip companies... Intel and AMD both sell CPUs that have part of the chip disabled since they cannot maintain a 100% working chip on 100% of chips produced.  That's why they have grades of chips... but hey, you should already know this, right? 

Admittedly, my sample size is small, having only ordered one unit, but here's my experience:
1.  They told me the unit should be delivered by June, but it was actually October.
2.  They told me it would use 100 watts, but it uses 300.
3.  They told me it would mine at 60 Gh/s, but it only does 57.
4.  My unit died after less than a month of use.

Maybe not everyone is experiencing fails number 3 and 4, but fails number 1 and 2 were universal.  BFL is a terrible company.  Why would anyone apologize for them?  Are you on the payroll?

[Bicknellski]

Statistical significance is the probability that an effect is not likely due to just chance alone.[1][2] It is an integral part of statistical hypothesis testing where it is used as an important value judgment. In statistics, a result is considered significant not because it is important or meaningful, but because it has been predicted as unlikely to have occurred by chance alone.[3]

1. Coolidge, Frederick L. (2012). Statistics: A Gentle Introduction (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc. pp. 1–38. ISBN 1-412-99171-4.
2. Norman, Geoffrey R.; Streiner, David L. (2008). Biostatistics: The Bare Essentials (3rd ed.). Lewiston, NY: pmph usa. pp. 46–69. ISBN 1-550-09347-9.
3. Sirkin, R. Mark (2005). Statistics for the Social Sciences (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc. pp. 271–316. ISBN 1-412-90546-X.

The number of failures and under performing units posted here alone has statistical significance as defined above as it is not chance or fate but a measurable failure on BFL's part producing these units.

Now that we have settled that debate with a clear definition of statistical significance how about BFL gets to work solving these problems and helps customers mine?
They need to stop trying to cover up and misrepresent the situation as 'pure chance' for these failures and under performance it is time to fix the problem as that is what good companies do. Finally address these failures and take responsibility and ultimately resolve the problem to these customers satisfaction. At this point no one should be putting any money in BFL for anything used or new given what is posted just in this thread alone. BFL = Krampus.

[Bicknellski]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=383536.msg4129770#msg4129770

My Jala ordered@7ghs is running at > 50% error rate with 6 ghs and your support tells me to send it back at my costs (germany - usa) to get it repaired, knowing that my shipping costs will just make things even worse.

When I ordered you said new orders will be shipped in 2 months. After 6 months you shipped mine, finally. No need to say anything more.

Compare that to KNC.

My Jala ordered@7ghs is running at > 50% error rate with 6 ghs and your support tells me to send it back at my costs (germany - usa) to get it repaired, knowing that my shipping costs will just make things even worse.

When I ordered you said new orders will be shipped in 2 months. After 6 months you shipped mine, finally. No need to say anything more.

And since you haven't returned it for RMA, you're what Josh considers "a happy customer". BFL has *a lot* of "happy customers".

We all should read *a lot* as statistical significance.

[Unacceptable]

Statistical significance is the probability that an effect is not likely due to just chance alone.[1][2] It is an integral part of statistical hypothesis testing where it is used as an important value judgment. In statistics, a result is considered significant not because it is important or meaningful, but because it has been predicted as unlikely to have occurred by chance alone.[3]

1. Coolidge, Frederick L. (2012). Statistics: A Gentle Introduction (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc. pp. 1–38. ISBN 1-412-99171-4.
2. Norman, Geoffrey R.; Streiner, David L. (2008). Biostatistics: The Bare Essentials (3rd ed.). Lewiston, NY: pmph usa. pp. 46–69. ISBN 1-550-09347-9.
3. Sirkin, R. Mark (2005). Statistics for the Social Sciences (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc. pp. 271–316. ISBN 1-412-90546-X.

The number of failures and under performing units posted here alone has statistical significance as defined above as it is not chance or fate but a measurable failure on BFL's part producing these units.

Now that we have settled that debate with a clear definition of statistical significance how about BFL gets to work solving these problems and helps customers mine?
They need to stop trying to cover up and misrepresent the situation as 'pure chance' for these failures and under performance it is time to fix the problem as that is what good companies do. Finally address these failures and take responsibility and ultimately resolve the problem to these customers satisfaction. At this point no one should be putting any money in BFL for anything used or new given what is posted just in this thread alone. BFL = Krampus.

Bick,your crazy....BFL is in this TOO MAKE MONEY,not to help CUSTOMERS to make money.

It's very evident that is their buissness model.Josh has been promoted to COO & has been turned into a bidness man,he doesn't give a rats ass about anyone but himself & the company he works for 

When he joined BFL I & many others thought,"Great we have someone to help us miners!!",wrong,he has turned his back on this community for the sake of profit 

[Bicknellski]

Bick, you're crazy...

That might be accurate... but you know what maybe if we actually shame them publically enough they will take responsibility.

Code:

"United Breaks Guitars" is a protest song by Canadian musician Dave Carroll and his band, Sons of Maxwell.
It chronicles a real-life experience of how his guitar was broken during a trip on United Airlines in 2008, and the 
subsequent reaction from the airline. The song became an immediate YouTube and iTunes hit upon its release in 
July 2009 and a public relations embarrassment for the airline.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo

My concern is with making it brutally evident that there is a serious disconnect between underperformance and product failure and what passes for RMA and resolution of customer complaints at BFL. If just one person avoids BFL then the hours spent tracking these failures is not a bad thing at all. Here is hoping many people avoid purchasing BFL in 2014.

Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz has written: Consumers “will embrace only the companies and brands they trust and with which they identify”.

Code:

How BFL should be handling customer complaints?

Do: Listen closely to the complaint – Before you start quoting your company’s policy or trying to deflect blame, 
try actually listening to your customer’s complaint. Put yourself in their shoes for a change. Are they making a valid point? 
What are they asking for you to do to resolve it? And remember, if one customer is complaining about something, you can 
be sure they’re probably not the only one who has encountered this situation. Most customers don’t bother complaining 
because they don’t think it does any good. Instead, they just take their business elsewhere.

Don’t: Try to argue with your customer – Look, dealing with an upset customer is never fun, but you have to handle the 
situation professionally. This means you don’t need to get in an argument with your customer. Handling complaints isn’t 
about trying to win an argument. It’s about minimizing damage and trying to ensure customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Do: Use complaints as an opportunity to improve – Every complaint represents an opportunity for your company to improve. 
Look closely at every complaint you receive, and figure out what you can do to keep that situation from ever coming up again.

Don’t: Think losing one customer is no big deal – If you really were losing just one customer, then maybe it wouldn’t be that big
 of a deal. But that’s not the reality. They used to say that upset customers would tell about a dozen other people about their 
poor experience. Well, with Twitter, blogs, forums, consumer complaint websites, and other online outlets, today’s disgruntled 
customer can tell thousands of people about their poor experience with your company. Never forget that.

Do: Be proactive in finding complaints – Speaking of customers venting their frustrations online, you should always know what’s 
being said about your company online. Monitor brand mentions with Google Alerts, Twitter alerts, Board Tracker, and other similar
reputation management tools. When you find these complaints online, try to fix them if possible.

Don’t: Beat customers over the head with your company policy – Upset customers don’t want to listen to you quoting back your 
company policy to justify why you can’t help them. Sure, it’s important to have policies in place, but you can’t view every single 
situation in black-and-white terms. That’s when you end up losing the human element. Be reasonable, and be flexible.

Do: Go the extra mile to resolve your customer’s complaint – Remember earlier when I said “Most customers don’t bother complaining 
because they don’t think it does any good”? Well, you can be the exception. If there is anything you can do to make sure the 
customer walks away satisfied, do it. Here’s a tip: Ask the customer what they would like for you to do to resolve the situation. 
Chances are, they have already have an idea of what they think is a fair solution, and this helps to put the ball in their court.

Don’t: Make the same mistake more than once – Mistakes happen. It’s a part of doing business, but you should never make the 
same mistake twice. This might mean retraining employees or changing your policy, but by all means, do whatever it takes to avoid 
making the same mistake twice.

http://www.ereleases.com/prfuel/handling-customer-complaints/

[crazyates]

I'm not going to read 10 pages of BFL bashing, but I will chime in.

I've had all of my hardware hashing pretty close to the advertised speed, some high some low, with the lowest Single coming in at 57.5GH/s, which is 4-5% below advertised.

I've had one of my Little Single PSUs die, and just recently a SC Single PSU die. BFL RMAd the first one, and is in the process of RMAing the second. Not a huge issue.

Don't really trust the PSUs a whole lot, so I plan on switching them to ATX PSUs relatively soon. And moving to 80Plus Gold will also help with efficiency no doubt.

[Bicknellski]

I'm not going to read 10 pages of BFL bashing, but I will chime in.

Most if not all the posts are like yours minus the happy results of RMA. Where it gets messy is when others troll. Specifically slok, inaba and bcp19 instigate off topic posts and pretty much all of their replies are ad hominem attacks and nothing to do with the product failures and under performance and I would recommend anyone actually reading through the thread to just skip over those even though they were reported they have not been removed by the mods although a few have been a lot remain cluttering up the thread. Or simply click IGNORE for those 3 and the thread cleans up very nicely as would 100's of other threads funnily enough.

You might want to review the on topic posts as a BFL customer as it is worth a look through about the failures, under performance and the lack of prompt email response from BFL time and time again. Hopefully most of the posts are on topic and not BFL bashing but rather providing more than enough evidence to prove that there is something beyond random chance happening with these failures or in other words statistically significant.

[bcp19]

I'm not going to read 10 pages of BFL bashing, but I will chime in.

Most if not all the posts are like yours minus the happy results of RMA. Where it gets messy is when others troll. Specifically slok, inaba and bcp19 instigate off topic posts and pretty much all of their replies are ad hominem attacks and nothing to do with the product failures and under performance and I would recommend anyone actually reading through the thread to just skip over those even though they were reported they have not been removed by the mods although a few have been a lot remain cluttering up the thread. Or simply click IGNORE for those 3 and the thread cleans up very nicely as would 100's of other threads funnily enough.

You might want to review the on topic posts as a BFL customer as it is worth a look through about the failures, under performance and the lack of prompt email response from BFL time and time again. Hopefully most of the posts are on topic and not BFL bashing but rather providing more than enough evidence to prove that there is something beyond random chance happening with these failures or in other words statistically significant.

Just had to quote this for posterity (especially since Bick loves to delete and rewrite posts instead of editing them).

1) There's almost 200 posts in this thread, if ALL of them were true complaints that'd be .5% of the 40,000+ units BFL has shipped.  You claim this .5% is statistically significant.
2) You call my replies ad honinem attacks, yet you call your own attacks a service to the community.  You are biased and not looking for anything positive as your thread title states.
3) "Hopefully most posts are on-topic and not BFL bashing" This entire thread is BFL bashing starting with the title.

I personally own 5 BFL products, 4 Jalapenos and a Little Single and all are using the PSUs supplied by BFL.  The LS and 1 Jalapeno have been running non-stop since early September, the others were acquired in Oct/Nov.  Of these 5 units, 3 are running +/- 1%, one is running +20% and one is running +50% of the speed they were advertised to run at.  One of your attack posts lists how a person paid for(and received) a 7GH upgrade yet they know people with 5GH orders that received 7GH and he was upset at having paid for an upgrade he received, yet you copied and posted it as a failure/underperformance.  How is +40% speed a failure or underperformance?

Many people on this forum fall into the DIY crowd and many have tried to eek out more performance by altering their units.  Can you in good faith respond to this and tell me that NONE of these 'complaints' you have copied and pasted into your bashing thread were caused by customer intervention?  Interestingly enough, BFL actually seems to be one of the few(if not the ONLY) ASIC companies that will RMA a device even if the customer did somethign stupid and bricked it.  On one visit I made to BFL I saw about 5-7 RMAs they had gotten in and several of them it was apparent someone took them apart and couldn't get them back together.  The person who performs the burn-in on products even told me that he'd tested several that had been sent in and once put back together properly ran at speed and temperature.

Sadly, Bick, you will never know what it is like to have to deal with the issues of having produced over 40,000 units for customers, so you are unable to truly understand what "statistically significant" truly is.  Sure, you can copy and paste from a dictionary, any monkey can do the same, but to truly understand... THAT takes something more.

[Inaba]

His latest project the "Hive" and "Wasp", which he promised a prototype in December, is late... Imagine that, yet another Bicknellski device that he's unable to deliver as promised on.  That makes how many devices that you've failed to deliver on, now, Bick?  Why anyone believes a word you say is mind boggling.

[vapourminer]

I've had one of my Little Single PSUs die, and just recently a SC Single PSU die. BFL RMAd the first one, and is in the process of RMAing the second. Not a huge issue.

Don't really trust the PSUs a whole lot, so I plan on switching them to ATX PSUs relatively soon. And moving to 80Plus Gold will also help with efficiency no doubt.

more or less the same here: my jally PSU died 6 months after delivery. however I had flashed the firmware to 8.1 Ghs so no warranty for me. I knew that before flashing it though.

also this full disclosure: my SC 25 I ordered arrived @ 31 Ghz from the factory. 6 months after I ordered it. and I never used the included PSU (it didnt exactly instill  confidence with its looks and feel), I use the antec basiq 500 watt that powers the computer. its been running a few weeks now.

but take this away if nothing else: bfl power supplies are absolute junk. there is no UL mark or number on them for a reason.

[joeventura]

His latest project the "Hive" and "Wasp", which he promised a prototype in December, is late... Imagine that, yet another Bicknellski device that he's unable to deliver as promised on.  That makes how many devices that you've failed to deliver on, now, Bick?  Why anyone believes a word you say is mind boggling.

At least you are honest Josh,
Here is a quote from your website taken just a second ago:

Shipping Schedule

This is a Pre-Order product which is not yet shipping.  If you're uncomfortable waiting until the development is complete and the product is shipped, do NOT pre-order this product. Perhaps undesirable, but this is a pre-order market.  Customers flatly demand to get in line for the new technology before it's finished development.  This has created a lot of drama for the manufacturers but it's something we simply have to deal with.  All manufacturers in this space have experienced some degree of delay with their first generation ASIC.  Every last one of them, so we're reluctant to give a specific delivery date.  However, this is our second generation, so we have much greater clarity on the process and we feel our timeline to begin shipments towards the end of the year

##END##

When it becomes December 25th and you are months away from delivering, is leaving statements like this on your website dishonest and fraud?

And if you don't think its dishonest or fraud, what is the Joshspeak that describes these statements still being on your website on 12/25?